


Love's the Only Medicine

by princeymarmar



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu | Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War
Genre: Developing Relationship, Healing, M/M, Nonbinary Character, Other, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:21:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28392315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princeymarmar/pseuds/princeymarmar
Summary: "Hey… next time you get hurt in battle… if you're gonna be stubborn about not seeing a healer, you can always come to me, yeah? I can at least make sure you don't bleed out or get an infection, or something.""Mhm," says Sety, fully intending to never take him up on the offer.Which means, naturally, that it falls into routine.Or, Sety, Arthur, and the inherent romanticism in patching up the guy you have a crush on. Written for Rally Spectrum+!
Relationships: Asaa | Arthur/Sety | Ced
Kudos: 8





	Love's the Only Medicine

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I got to write as part of Rally Spectrum+ Zine, and we got the okay to post our full entries a few days back! I was a little busy at the time, so I didn't post mine immediately, but here it is!
> 
> While I used Ced for the zine itself as that Is his official canon translated name, this post of it refers to them as Sety still, because that's how it was in the original doc as I was writing.

Sety leaves the Liberation Army's temporary tactics room feeling, by all accounts, drained. A hundred thousand different scenarios had run through his head for what finding his father again would be like, and yet none of them could have prepared him for _indifference._

He half-stumbles through empty halls, trying to ignore the pain from the week old wound on his back and think only of the nice room and warm bed set aside for them.

They want to be _alone._

Of course, fate seems in a mood to play cruel tricks on them today, and so this is not at all what they get.

"Going somewhere, Great Hero of Manster, Prince of Silesse, Son of Merchants, Sety?"

Startled, Sety whirls around, a gust of wind springing to fingers more used to the threat of attack than the sound of a friend – only to drop seconds later when he sees who it is. It's someone from the Liberation Army, the short guy with brown skin and purple eyes and long lavender hair, a long black coat, and a blue scarf around his neck that he's idly toying with.

They think they saw him earlier, huddling with Fee and whispering hurriedly to each other in a way that suggested they were friends. Sety scowls. He loves his sister dearly, but he’s tired and his back aches and he simply cannot deal with the sort of energy her and all her friends carry with them.

"What's it to you." It comes out far harsher than they meant, but even their patience is finite, and right now they have all but run out. "Who even _are_ you, anyway."

For a moment, he thinks there's a startled look on the other teen's face, but it masks over into a smug looking smile too quickly for Sety to tell. "Oh, nothing, really," he says, shrugging. "The name's Arthur. You haven't heard of me? A shame. I've heard plenty about _you_. You know, you're looking rather stiff for Manster's Invincible, Untouchable Hero. You sure there's not something you're hiding?"

"So?" Sety waves a hand, deflecting the question. Arthur, however, is not easily deterred.

"So, if you are, you should see a healer. We've got those here, yeah?"

Sety does not want to see a healer. What he wants to do is sleep, and be left alone. “I assure you. I am _perfectly_ fine,” he grits out, whirling around with the intent to stomp off to his room – only to stumble, embarrassingly, and be caught by Arthur, who’d darted to his side with surprising speed.

“Uh-huh. Y’know, if you want to be stubborn about it, I can always patch you up myself.”

Sety blinks at him. "...You don't look like a healer."

"You'll find I'm a man of many surprises!" Arthur says, brightly. "Now, come along."

With that, Sety is dragged along to a nearby storageroom, and sat on top of a crate. Arthur hops up beside him, and it’s then that Sety realizes-

“You don’t have a stave, either.”

Arthur looks up to grin at him, even as he gently yet gingerly pulls their shirt up. “Well, of course not. Never said I was _that_ kind of healer, did I? Just told you I’d patch you up.”

Sety’s mouth opens, then closes, and they decide not to question it for now as Arthur pulls out a long roll of gauze from inside his coat, as well as several other things he’s less familiar with, and sets to work, cleaning and disinfecting the wound before starting to bandage it.

“...My dad had a friend who – is a healer,” he says after a long pause, eyes not lifting from Sety’s side. “She learned herbal medicine from her husband, and she passed the knowledge on to – them.” He pauses again to let the word sink in, eyes flicking up to Sety’s face as though daring them to say something. Sety says nothing. Saying anything would be hypocritical.

Eventually Arthur turns his gaze back to the bandages. “The stuff that mattered, things she thought they might need, or want to know. They learned more while living in Silesse. And they passed the knowledge on to me in case I... needed it, too.”

The words sound carefully weighed, with a biting edge to them – that, combined with the way he hastily finishes tying off the bandages and pulls his hands back to himself, makes Sety think he had. Once more, he says nothing about it.

Arthur still doesn't look up at them as he pulls their shirt back down over the bandages. "Well then. That's done. Good as new, eh?" He pauses for a long moment, before finally looking back up at them, a small and slightly sheepish smile spreading on his face. "Hey… next time you get hurt in battle… if you're gonna be stubborn about not seeing a healer, you can always come to me, yeah? I can at least make sure you don't bleed out or get an infection, or something."

"Mhm," says Sety, fully intending to never take him up on the offer.

Which means, naturally, that it falls into routine. Arthur seeks them out after every battle, playfully chiding them for being a “self-sacrificing idiot, always throwing yourself into the worst of it because you think you can, never letting anyone take care of you because you think everyone else has it worse.” Sety, in turn, would use his mend staff to heal Arthur’s injuries, and pretend to turn a blind eye to how much power drained from the staff each time.

It's because it's routine that he likes it, he tells himself, and only because of routine that he keeps talking to Arthur at all.

It's because it's routine that, when Arthur doesn't find him right after their latest battle, Sety immediately starts searching for him instead.

Their search leads them to the medical tent.

"Wow," says Arthur as they enter, blinking at Sety for a moment with wide eyes and what looks to be genuine shock – before it masks over into a pain-strained smirk. "Coming to see me first, this time?"

" _Arthur._ "

"What?" Arthur shifts into a sitting position, grimacing. "S'not like I'm hurt in any way that really matters. Nothing Lana couldn't fix with a heal staff. The worst I've got is 'magic exhaustion'-" he makes very clear air quotes around the words "-which just means I'm out of commission and unable to do anything actually useful for the next few days."

"They said you took on Hilda," Sety says, brow furrowing.

Arthur scowls, rolling his eyes. "Well, of course I did. I couldn't let Tine face down that witch herself."

" _Unarmed_."

The scowl lines on Arthur's forehead deepen for a moment, but despite that he somehow manages to crack a smile. "Well, that explains the magic exhaustion. Tomeless magic really does a number on you, y'know?"

"You," Sety says, voice threatening to crack, "every time – _every time_ I come to you after a battle, you always tell me off for being 'too self-sacrificing'. And yet you are the most reckless-" he takes a stride "-brave -" another "- _selfless_ person I know." He reaches Arthur's bedside, swings himself down onto a nearby chair, and grabs Arthur’s hand in both of his.

Arthur stares at it for a long time, his hand in Sety’s hands. Almost as if it's a subconscious reaction, his free hand reaches up to stroke his old blue scarf.

"...You know how I got this scarf?"

"I – no, of course not, what does that have to do with any of this?"

Arthur stares at him for a long moment, his eyes scanning their face as if to make sure they're telling him the truth, before sighing heavily and leaning back down against the headboard. "...There used to be a merchant, who visited my town every weekend. No one really knew anything about him – not even _who_ he was, really. So of course, it was a big shock when he brought his son with him one day."

His hand keeps idly stroking his scarf. "It was only ever one day, you know. No one ever heard anything about his family again after that. So it, it probably shouldn't have meant as much as it did, but, I was young, and no one else was ever quite as kind to a street orphan, and I was... still figuring myself out, beyond a new name and all. So, when he took my hands, told me I looked cold, and gave me his scarf… I just… it sparked something like love."

He laughs, bitter and wet. "Knew that I'd never forget it, either. Hard to forget eyes like that. Brown and green."

He's staring them in the eyes now, and Sety grows very uncomfortably, consciously aware of the fact that his own eyes are brown and green, that among the titles Arthur had first given him was _Son of Merchants-_

"But! Hey! That's stupid, isn't it, to chase after a person you met once when you were _seven_ , I mean, of course. Of course it would’ve meant more to me than it did to him, so, so it's okay that you forgot, Sety-"

Sety stands, nervous energy coiling through him like a spring, only to immediately sit back down when Arthur flashes him an alarmed look. They squeeze his hand, off and on, as they struggle to find the words to express how they're feeling.

"You're right. I don't remember that day. But even so, I-"

They do not finish the sentence with words.

**Author's Note:**

> Sety's back injury and Arthur knowing about herbs/healing/being a Doctor both were inspired by Oosawa scenes! I don't particularly care much about Oosawa as a whole, but I did really like little details like these, if only for the content you can make with them.
> 
> Forseti!Lewyn disguising himself as a merchant and visiting Arthur when he was young to teach him magic came from Kaga's notes? Dream scenarios? Whatever. Again, another fun scenario to play with, even if I don't quite keep it to the full canon.
> 
> A little expansion on Arthur's comments while patching up Sety for the first time: His dad in this is Azel, who is nonbinary. Azel learned medicine from Edain (still alive), who learned herbal medicine specifically from Jamke.
> 
> Tomeless magic is not really a feature in Jugdral, but given that it's used in Valentia, which is in the same world, I figured to hell with it. You can do tomeless magic in Jugdral but just like in Valentia the cost is that it drains your hp. Arthur exploding into a full anima wrath attack on Hilda probably took more out of him than Hilda's own magic did! I also figure that this might provide some in universe reason that tomes can eventually break despite being a book - they serve as a conduit for magical energy, so that instead of the spellcaster's health being drained, it just takes the energy right from the book.


End file.
